INEC Chairman promises 2023 elections will be best ever     

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, at the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) forum in Lagos, said that the INEC is working hard to ensure that the 2023 general elections turn out to be best the country has ever had since the contemporary democratic dispensation in Nigeria. The INEC chairman stated that “apart from being free, fair, transparent and credible, next year’s election will have an additional feature, it will be verifiable.”

Prof. Yakubu emphasized the potency of the Electoral Act in complementing the efforts of the INEC, particularly, the deployment of technology from voter registration to voter accreditation, voting and transmission of results.

Prof.  Yakubu disclosed efforts of INEC in tackling the challenges the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) raised at a press briefing by the spokesman, Ikenga Ugochinyere, relating to fictitious names in the voters register.

Ugochinyere had alleged that a political party diverted the INEC registration and registered about 10 million fake voters.

Ugochinyere had declared: “The names were sourced from both within and outside Nigeria, including some African countries such as Ghana, Cameroon, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Togo, Guinea, Gambia and countries outside Africa including Jamaica, Brazil and New Zealand.”

The INEC chairman said the allegation is a total falsehood, saying the CUPP would not have got the voters register which INEC is still cleaning up. Hr. said that INEC does not have valid voter register at the moment and can only have one after the cleanup which would be displayed publicly.

Prof. Yakubu disclosed that over 97 million voters had been captured in the INEC database, reiterating that the number is huge relative to voter’s registers in other West African countries. He said that the cumulative voter register of the other 14 countries in West Africa is about 70 million.